


A Good Neighbor

by TriplePirouette



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Meet-Cute, Modern AU, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriplePirouette/pseuds/TriplePirouette
Summary: Tumblr Ask box fic/birthday fic for CaptainPeggyCarterIsMySexuality. Steve and Peggy keep running into one another, but it's a disaster. Modern AU.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	A Good Neighbor

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Steve and Peggy keep accidentally meeting/running into one another and terrible [in a good way] flirting ensures before one of them asks the other on a date or one of their friends does it for them because they're helpless.
> 
> Happy birthday CaptainPeggyCarterIsMySexuality. I hope you enjoy this little… whatever it is. Modern AU. I guess it also kinda fulfills your earlier ask for a “meet ugly”??? I didn’t even get to read over it as I’m literally RUNNING back out to work, but I hope you have a WONDERFUL day and this brings you a little birthday cheer!

He’d seen her in his building once or twice. He didn’t think she lived there, but was rather visiting Angie who lived down the hall from him. She was pretty, and her voice seemed kind. If she was friends with Angie, he bet she was generally a nice person, too.

He was getting his mail in the front hall when she passed on the way out. “Hi,” he said only somewhat confidently and smiling brightly. God, he was no good at this.

Peggy smiled and waved, tight lips holding back a laugh as she waved and ducked her way out of the building.

Steve slinked back to his apartment, bills and junk mail in hand. He didn’t really know exactly what it was that made him so hopeless (Bucky seemed to have a few ideas) but it was starting to wear on him.

Steve turned, catching his reflection in his bathroom mirror from the hallway. He smiled and repeated his hello, wondering if he’d seemed too eager or too shy, but even from the hall he could see the smudge between his teeth. He stepped forward, turning the light on and curling his lip up. Right in between his front teeth was a lovely, perfectly intact, broccoli floret from his lunch.

“Aw, man!”

~*~

* * *

According to Angie, he was sweet: a good neighbor who she didn’t know well, but that had held the door for her on more than one occasion and offered to help her when she had tried to install a window air conditioner by herself.

Peggy just thought he was hot.

She’d caught glimpses of him around the building when she was coming and going. He was usually in something casual, often paint stained, but always well kept.

The first time he’d tried to talk to her she could barely keep her laugh inside. Despite Angie’s assurances he was “a nice guy,” Peggy expected him to be… well, anything other than the sweet, slightly shy guy saying 'Hi' to her with broccoli stuck in his teeth.

It completely changed her opinion on what she thought he was: not some tough gym rat but some cute golden retriever puppy. With broccoli in his teeth.

She and Angie had been out, coming back from the bar where Peggy realized not only had she mentally compared every guy in the bar to her new broccoli puppy ideal, she’d talked about him all night. The sidewalk in front of Angie’s building was cold, the wind biting.

“You’re not driving home,” Angie protested.

Peggy took a deep breath, leaning against the brick. “I only had two drinks- it’s not the alcohol.” She closed her eyes and tipped her head back. “I think it was the food.”

“We had the same food,” Angie protested, pulling out her phone. “I’m getting you an Uber.”

“No, I had the wings, too.”

Angie frowned at her. “Ohhhhh yeah. I told you not to.”

Peggy moaned, looking up at Angie. “Should have listened.”

Steve turned the corner next to the building and she saw him immediately move toward them, concerned.

He stopped, close enough to touch. “You guys ok, Angie?”

Peggy tried to hold it back, she really did, but her body was having none of it. She put her hands to her mouth, but what she had hoped to use to shield everyone only served to turn the vomit into a spray out of her mouth, covering herself and Steve in the vile regurgitation. 

He jumped back, but was wasn’t fast enough.

Angie was nervous laughing, her hands paused mid-call for the Uber. Steve’s face tried to stay calm, but there was little he could do to hide the mounting surprise and disgust.

Peggy, horrified, shook her hands down at the pavement to try to get them clean. She couldn’t look at him. “I am so, so sorry…”

“Fine,” he mumbled. “It’s fine. I’m gonna…”

Peggy didn’t see him point to the building, but Angie did and nodded. “Good idea.”

Peggy heard the door slam. “Oh, this is horrible.”

Angie inched over towards Peggy. “Nah, people puke. He’s reasonable. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

Peggy stood up straight, wiping her hands on her ruined shirt. “On the bright side, I’m feeling a little better.”

~*~

* * *

He had no idea how to talk to her, standing on the train platform a dozen feet away, her toes just at the edge of the yellow caution line. She hadn’t seen him come down the stairs, hadn’t turned his way.

_Hi. Angie told me it was food poisoning. Don’t worry about it. I had to throw away my shirt, but it was fine._

_Good to see you again. Should I stay a few feet away?_

_You didn’t have any wings today, did you?_

He took a deep breath, ran his tongue over his teeth, and started moving towards her. Just as he got close and was ready to say hello, a man came barreling down the platform in the other direction on a bike, clipping her backpack with his handlebars and sending her careening towards the edge.

Steve was fast enough to catch her, and pulled her back, both of them surprised.

And then they were even more surprised to find that while Steve’s one hand had steadied her by the shoulder, his other had pulled her squarely by the ass back onto the platform.

Stunned, neither moved.

Peggy gulped, and Steve jumped back as if she’d burned him. “You ok?”

“Heart’s pounding, but everything else seems to be quite ok.” She brushed back her hair and steadied herself.

“Sorry about…” he gestured his hand toward her hip then pulled it back, shoving it in his pocket.

“Better felt up than dead,” she said, trying to make it sound humorous but failing. The train, thankfully, pulled up, blowing hot wind past them. “Your line?”

He shrugged, a half-smile on his face as he pointed to the opposite side of the platform where his train would pull up soon. “Not today.”

“Then I’m lucky you were here.” She disappeared into the train with the rush of bodies, and he wasn’t sure exactly if he felt like that one had gone better than any of the rest of the times he’d tried to talk to her.

~*~

* * *

Peggy’s eyes were on Angie, balancing the open cup of steaming coffee in her hand as they walked through the lobby. “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

Angie shrugged. “It’s just coffee.”

Peggy turned to face her as she stopped, “Yes, but I was up all night and won’t make it through the day without this.”

As Peggy turned to leave, Steve backed in through the door, his arms laden with boxes. With spectacular timing they ran straight into one another, Peggy’s coffee flying through the air in seeming slow motion to land across her chest, staining the white of her blouse. Steve juggled the boxes for a moment, but lost to gravity as they tumbled at his feet.

Time seemed to jump back to normal frame as Peggy jumped back, pulling at her shirt to keep it away from her skin. “Hot! Hot…” she stuttered out, looking down at the ruined silk.

Steve, flabbergasted, made a low noise of shock in his throat as he noticed all that had happened. “Are you... oh man… oh no.”

He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and approached Peggy, but hesitated to reach out to try to dry her chest. Angie plucked it from his fingers and turned Peggy back towards her apartment. “Come on, I have more coffee and a shirt you can borrow.”

Steve was left in a puddle of coffee, staring at his boxes.

~*~

* * *

Peggy rode the subway every day, but she generally hated it. Switching trains, most crowded and tight, just to get out and push and shove to get home.

It gave her a headache.

Like most women, she put her headphones in and set her chin, staring at her phone and mentally daring anyone to bother her. Somewhere along the way, she saw a familiar form board the train. She peeked from under her eyelashes and it was absolutely him.

If there were ever, ever signs from the universe that getting involved with him was a bad idea, their last few encounters were it. Disasters. All of them. She kept her head down. He hadn’t looked up since he boarded and she was sure he was just as mortified to see her.

At each stop the car grew fuller, more bodies squeezing in for the commute home. She felt her stomach drop a little, and it wasn’t at the motion of the car. She was pretty sure she was sad that her broccoli eating, sweet as hell neighbor Steve was not a good dating choice. Why it seemed to make her physically ill, that seemed to be another thing all together. She scrolled on her phone, not reading anything but pausing and pretending, her earphones silent so she could be aware of the things around her.

The man next to her had foul breath, and he seemed intent on making sure she knew it. He was breathing heavy and close, and she kept her eyes firmly on her screen.

When the train stopped again she shifted as people got on and off, but the man stayed close, this time moving so his arm touched her as she held on to the pole. She gave him a side eye and shifted away as the train started up again. He used a bump in the track to move closer, reaching out and grazing her arm as he reached for the pole.

“Rough ride, huh?”

She forced a fake smile at him and went back to her phone.

He bent down and low, smiling at her and forcing her to look at him as he leaned into her space. “You from around here?”

Peggy tapped her earphones and turned away from him. Some people just didn’t get the hint.

He forcibly turned her back, a scowl on his face and just as she was getting ready to punch him, Steve parted the crowd next to them.

“Honey! There you are, I’ve been looking all over for you!” He leaned down to the far cheek that the man couldn’t see and instead of pressing a kiss there he whispered, “You ok?”

Peggy took her hand from the rail and let it fall on Steve’s shoulder. She turned and kissed his cheek. “Been here the whole time,” she replied to his ruse.

She was used to dealing with creeps on the train, but not usually ones that dared put their hands on her. She didn’t normally like being “rescued” or letting other people take care of things for her, but she did have to admit, she did like the idea of not being arrested for assault over a creep in the subway.

Steve gripped the rail and then slid his other arm around Peggy, looking straight at the man whose scowl hadn’t changed. “Nice day, isn’t it?”

He harrumphed, mumbling a positive affirmation, but didn’t move as there wasn’t much space to go in this end of the car.

Peggy leaned into Steve’s side, mostly because without the rail she had terrible balance, but partly because his presence did a lot to make her feel safer.

Peggy watched the man occasionally eye her, and though it didn’t look like Steve was watching he must have seen because in those moments he let his arm curl tighter, or would press his chin to her head: little moments of casual intimacy that sold their ruse to the disgruntled man.

Their stop came before his, and Steve reached out, taking her hand as they stepped off the train.

Steve waited until they were up the stairs and on the street before he turned to her. “You really ok?”

She nodded, looking at their still twined hands. “I’d like to say that’s not something that happens, but…”

“I hope I didn’t…”

“No, I was about ready to punch him.” She smiled. “You probably saved me from an assault charge.”

Steve smiled. “I, uh, didn’t even ask if this was your stop.”

She laughed lightly. “I live about 4 blocks from you.” Without letting go of his hand she started moving again, pulling in the direction of his apartment.

She could feel his palm getting clammy in hers. Even though she felt her own butterflies, she squeezed it.

“Maybe… maybe I could take you out for dinner. One night.” He stumbled over the invitation as they paused, waiting for a car to turn before they crossed the street.

“I’m free tonight,” she said, happy that it came out more confident than it felt.

“Good,” he murmured, squeezing her hand. “Good.”


End file.
